


Just Another Mutant

by ash_mcj



Category: Marvel, West Coast Avengers, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Sentinels, Survivors, X-men - Freeform, poem, sentinel services
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25395910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ash_mcj/pseuds/ash_mcj
Summary: While searching for prisoners left over in a recently-liberated ex-mutant camp, Kitty Pryde finds a poem written by one of the mutants who were held there.(Post-Apocalyptic AU, where the mutant race was nearly exterminated by Sentinel Services)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Just Another Mutant

**Author's Note:**

> I found an old poem I wrote in high school about the Holocaust and I realized that it could apply (with a few tweaks) to a future I write a lot about that features mutants being hunted by Sentinels and killed/imprisoned until near extinction...so I decided to throw it on here.

For the first time in years, there was silence. No bombs, no yelling. Sentinel Services had finally been shut down a few days prior and some of the remaining heroes that had managed to survive while running the Mutant Underground were searching through the remains of the mutant camps that had recently been liberated. 

“What are we looking for, anyways?” Kitty asked, jumping over a pile of wooden boards.

“People,” Logan grunted, sniffing the air. “Quentin said he detected prisoners that were still alive, but chained up in ‘ere somewhere. We find ‘em, we get movin’. Not leavin’ ‘til we’ve got everyone.”

“Hey, sorry we’re late,” Kate apologized, running up to the pair of mutants with Quentin and Clint trailing behind. “The streets are packed. People are celebrating.”

“That’s ‘cause they aren’t here seein’ this,” Logan said, looking around at the run-down housing buildings and blood-stained streets.

“Let’s split into teams, yeah? Clint and I will take that side of the camp and Logan and Kitty search this side. Quentin, just walk around until you find the prisoners,” Kate instructed, to which everyone nodded and went their separate ways.

“I’ll go look through those buildings,” Kitty told Logan, who barely acknowledged that she had said anything.

She walked up to the front door and tried to open it, but there was something in the way. The window beside the door was smashed in and by the scratched frame, it was obvious that a sentinel bot had broken in that way. She phased herself through the door and the dresser that was pushed against it, then solidified once she was in the house. It wasn’t exactly a house--more like a single room lined with a dozen cots scattered around and a waste bucket in the corner. Kitty’s stomach churned at the sight of the red, dried blood splatters on the walls and she nearly ran back outside when she noticed the five thin bodies laying on the floor in a dark, dried puddle behind a table. 

Kitty dug the heels of her palms into her eyes until she saw specs behind her eyelids and took a breath to steady herself.

“Calm down, Kitty,” She told herself quietly.

She opened her eyes and walked over to the people on the ground, kneeling beside them in order to get close enough to check their pulses. All five were dead.

Kitty wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream or cry in that moment, but she wasn’t sure she would be capable of either. She felt horrified and frozen as she looked at the youngest of the group--a girl perhaps around ten or eleven. She’d probably just developed her mutant abilities when she was captured and ripped away from her family to be collared and placed here like an animal. Maybe she hadn’t even developed them yet--she just as easily could have simply possessed the mutant gene which the government wouldn’t risk keeping in society.

How brave these people must have been to refuse to work for the Sentinel Services. They obviously barricaded the door to try to stand up to them, knowing full well it would be a death wish. Then again, maybe they just wanted it to be over.

Kitty was about to leave, when she noticed the corner of a piece of blood-stained paper poking out of the waistband of the tattered government-issued pajama-like uniform one of the older girls was wearing. She carefully took the paper and unfolded it, revealing a poem.

_Let’s all pretend that the bodies lined along the sidewalks of the camp are logs, when we jump over them.  
_ _Let’s all pretend they are fallen trees or sticks or maybe even rocks.  
_ _Let’s all pretend they are anything-- anything but bodies.  
_ _Let’s all just pretend.  
_ _It’s easy, if you don’t look around._

 _Let’s all pretend that the children outside the camp’s wall--torn to shreds by the soldiers’ dogs as they have contests to see which dog can catch them first--are simply playing a game of fetch.  
_ _Let’s all pretend the soldiers aren’t having target practice on the small, desperate mutant children only trying to find food for their starving families.  
_ _It’s easy, if you don’t listen to their screams._

 _Let’s all pretend that the elderly man being thrown to the ground, his beard ripped forcefully from his chin, isn’t there.  
_ _Let’s all pretend we don’t see the blood or hear his crying.  
_ _It’s easier that way._

 _Please, for the love of the Gods and all that They are worth, can we all pretend--just for an instant--that a person could never be capable of doing such horrible things to the innocent?  
_ _If we don’t pretend that our now-Hellish world isn’t falling apart and our lives aren’t completely ruined, then surely we will lose our minds._

 _So, let’s all pretend we are okay.  
_ _Let’s all sing songs and make friends.  
_ _Let’s all turn the camp into a place of mutant culture.  
_ _Let’s all pretend we aren’t beaten down and shattered.  
_ _Maybe if we pretend long enough, we will start to believe it, too._

 _The thing about pretending, though, is that it’s not real.  
_ _We have to open our eyes again at some point.  
_ _Then we see and hear everything, and we realize:_

 _A man can do so much evil in the name of what he believes is right.  
_ _Maybe that’s the scariest part of it all. They think they are helping._

_\--Just Another Mutant_

"Are ya alright in there, Kitty?" Logan called from the window, pulling Kitty from her blank stare at the paper. 

"I, uh...yeah," Kitty choked out, wiping her eyes when her vision began to blur from the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.

"Quentin found someone. He thinks there's a couple more...anyone in there?"

"No...they're all dead in here," Kitty sighed, pushing herself up to her feet and setting the open page on the chest of the poet, before leaving them to go search some more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for any kudos/comments!


End file.
